Solas - seeing Lavellan for the first time after 10 years.
I’m pretty certain this is from my sister. 💜
For so very long, Solas has been consumed by a sunk cost fallacy. Every loss, every sacrifice, every life taken has reinforced this belief, making it harder for him to turn back. He has buried his emotions, hardened himself, and tried to become the remorseless force he believes he must be. The villain.
He does not think - only feels.
There is a pain that surges through his chest, the ache is sharp and hammers the centre of his rib cage so hard that he might have staggered if his body were not locked in place, frozen, stunned.
His breath catches. He had forced her from his mind - believed this moment could never exist.
The moment he sees her his carefully constructed detachment starts to falter. This is the woman he loves, the one who made him question his path before. He knows she is here to try again to help save the world he is prepared to destroy.
But this time, his path is nearly complete. He has sacrificed too much, told himself for too long that turning back would make all his suffering meaningless. He cannot let himself waver.
And yet...she stands before him, real and vivid in the chaos of all he has wrought.
And all the justifications he has clung to - the walls he has built, the distance he has enforced - begin to tremble...
He notices suddenly, the signature of time that has passed. He registers her face. She has changed. There is something in the way she stands, in the shape of her face, in the set of her shoulders. She is older. It is a stark reminder of the life he has denied himself, the warmth he turned away from. She is living proof of what he could have had if he had chosen love over destruction. And now she is here, standing before him, the past he has tried to bury made flesh.
The guilt, the grief - he forces them back, shoving them down as he has done for centuries. He cannot afford to feel them.
And now he notices her eyes, there is something in her gaze. He does not know what he expected - fury, sorrow, betrayal - but this, this is worse.
She still sees him. She still sees Solas.
With a voice he barely recognizes as his own, he whispers – partly in shock, partly in shame.
By the time Solas reaches the end of Veilguard, he is a broken man. He has been beaten down, physically, emotionally and spiritually. He has fought a god’s dragon, poured everything he had into reaching this moment. Every mistake, every regret, every act of violence, every loss presses down on him – ruining him even further.
This is not how he imagined his triumph. He thought the weight of his sins would be eclipsed by the grandeur of what he restored. But instead, he is faced with the one thing he never allowed himself to consider: failure. Mythal's words break the final thread of his justification.
And then, Lavellan kneels before him.
She tells him that, whatever comes next, it will not be terrible if they are together.
He is in pain, exhausted, defeated, but in her presence, he is no longer alone. He does not deny her this time - her choice - he would never ask this of her, but neither will he turn away from this grace. He has chosen atonement. He will spend eternity to make amends for what he has done. But here, now, in the softening of his gaze, in the way he does not pull away from her touch, he makes another choice.
He chooses her. He chooses to trust her to bear this with him.
He accepts his heart back, returned by the one he gave it to.
